This singular correspondence between “Asmach” of the Grecian historian, and “Gurague” of modern travellers, would be alone, perhaps, inconclusive evidence that these terms apply to the same people or country, but some additional evidence may be drawn from the account which Pliny gives of these Egyptian fugitives. On the authority of Aristocreon, he states, that “Seventeen days from Meroë is Esar, a city of those Egyptians who fled from Psammeticus, and entered the service of the monarch of that country, and in return received a considerable tract of territory upon the confines, from which the Ethiopian prince ordered them to expel a tribe of people, at that time in rebellion against him, and this migration of the Egyptian troops, introducing the arts and manners of a refined nation, had a very sensible effect in civilizing the Ethiopians.” The most interesting particulars we gather from this information, is the name of the city, or, as I presume, the chief seat of these fugitives, Esar. By a singular coincidence in the Old Testament, we are told that Esau is Edom, and although I am not going to infer from this alone, any connexion between that patriarch and the Ethiopian city, Esar, yet the philological analogy between the scriptural proper names, curiously enough, also exists between those of profane history; for the Esar and Amhara of our subject, express the very same idea as Esau and Edom, which by all Biblical commentators, is allowed to be the colour red. “And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau.” (Genesis xxv. 25.) In the present Dankalli language, and I think also, in that of ancient Meroë, Assar signifies red. In the Persian, I am given to understand that the planet Mars is called Azer, from its characteristic colour, a circumstance of significant import when it is considered that the word Calla, from which is derived Galla, “Ab” the root of Abi, and “Nil,” from which comes Nile, with others I have yet to speak of, as designations of places in Abyssinia, are all referable to the same language. To return, however, to Esar, and its connexion with the colour red, for it is the same with Esau, and that it is the same as Edom in Hebrew, I advance the testimony of Dr. Stukeley, who, speaking of the Red Sea, remarks, “That sea had its name from Erythras, as the Greeks and the same Pliny write; who is Edom, or Esau, brother of Jacob. The words are synonymous, signifying red.”[1] Amhara, also bears the same interpretation in Amharic, and although it has another meaning, that of beautiful, this is only because of the national taste directing the name of the favourite complexion among them, to be employed as the term for beauty itself. The Dankalli slave-merchant well understands this, for a light-red Abyssinian girl is the Circassian of oriental harems. In Arabia, where the original word still conveys the more common idea, we find “hamah” employed to express the colour red.